The 
Soldier Boy 

A Book of War Gains 
<By C.Lewis Hind 




Class ^L- L 



Book 



GopyrightN°___. 



COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT, 



THE SOLDIER-BOY 



BY 

C. LEWIS HIND 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Gbe Umicfcerbocfcer press 

1916 



ZD640 



Copyright, 1916 

BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Ube ftnfcfterbocfter Qvcss, mew IBorft 

JUN 23 1916 
©CI.A433485 



Go 

MY WIFE 
(she knows why) 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 




PAGE 


L- 


— The Soldier Boy 


1 


II.- 


—It is Well 


9 


III.- 


—The Sentinel . 


16 


IV.- 


—The Undying Things 


. 23 


V.- 


—Wisdom .... 


29 


VI.- 


—To a Subaltern 


36 


VII.- 


—The Sensitive . 


44 


VIII.- 


—The Quiet Room 


52 


IX.- 


—June Joy .... 


59 


x- 


—The Vision Splendid 


72 


XI.- 


—Art and Immortality 


77 


XII.- 


—The Unforgettable Sight 


83 


XIII.- 


-The Whelps 


90 


XIV.- 


—Enduring to the End 


100 


XV.- 


—To One Who was Ready 


. 109 



The Soldier-Boy 

CHAPTER I 

THE SOLDIER-BOY 

T^HE Soldier-Boy is nineteen. He is be- 
■* ginning. Let him be nameless until he 
returns, bringing his sheaves with him. 

The Soldier- Saint died a martyr's death 
more than 1600 years ago, yet he moves still. 
England's St. George lives immortal in the 
great chronicle of history; lives a dazzling 
figure in painting and sculpture and in the 
inner memory, where things not seen — are 
seen. Close the eyes and visualise this un- 
painted picture — "once, in the history of our 
land, the cross of St. George, red on a white 
ground, was worn as a badge over the armour 
by every English soldier." 



2 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

To-day, when the bugles blow and the men 
swing down the street, I seem to see that 
badge of the patron saint of chivalry and of 
England floating in light on the khaki uni- 
forms, presaging victory, because our cause 
is right, and our army stands for all that 
St. George means. I seem to see that badge 
flashing from the breast of the Soldier-Boy, 
as he crouches in the trenches on this the 
eve of St. George's Day, England's Day, and 
I send a message to him from Carlyle — this: 
"Thou art not alone if thou have faith. 
There is a communion of saints, unseen, yet 
not unreal, accompanying and, brotherlike, 
embracing thee, so thou be worthy." I 
should not be surprised if he wears beneath 
his khaki jacket, hidden from view, but very 
near to him, that red cross on a white ground. 
Soldier-Boy, thou art not alone! Thou art 
kin to St. George!" 

We spent a day together, the Soldier-Boy 
and I, before he went out to the front. "I 
shall be in the trenches on St. George's Day," 



THE SOLDIER-BOY 3 

he said gleefully, and on that great name we 
dwelt, talking of St. George, opening books, 
reading aloud, repeating the strange, inspirit- 
ing stories of his appearance during the 
Crusades, and elsewhere when men were 
righting for the Right, aiding all who had 
accepted the spiritual idea of this soldier of 
Christ — "patron of chivalry, emblem of 
victory and civility, and the pride of the 
best blood of the modern world." 



We ignored all the false stories that have 
gathered around St. George, finding him heroic 
and beyond reproach, the peerless soldier 
whose name and ensign Edward III. chose as 
the inspiration of the most noble order of 
knighthood in Europe. And as we talked, 
fashioning and reverencing our ideal, I hop- 
ing, ay, knowing, that the Soldier-Boy would 
carry that ideal with him to Flanders, sud- 
denly he addressed to me the natural question : 
"I wonder what St. George was like?" 



4 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

I answered: "Almost every artist of im- 
portance has given us his version of St. 
George. The dragon is usually a failure, 
often comic, for it is impossible to portray 
in paint or marble the undying beast that 
St. George sets forth, again and again, 
through the centuries, to re-destroy. Eng- 
land, at this moment, is destroying him anew, 
and the spirit of St. George is watching and 
inspiring England. If you were to ask me 
which is the ideal figure in art of St. George 
I would answer at once — that by Donatello." 

The Soldier-Boy's face (he is not learned 
in art) was blank. 

" Donatello," I said, "was one of the great 
early lights of sculpture. Born in Florence 
in 1386, he produced works that have never 
been surpassed in marvellous fusion of the 
ideal and the real, and among his triumphs 
was his statue of St. George, which he carved 
for the Guild of Armourers. It was placed 
in a niche of the Church of Or San Michele 
in Florence in 14 16. There it should have 



THE SOLDIER-BOY 5 

remained for ever in the tabernacle designed 
by Donatello, but in 1890 some busybody 
removed it to the Bargello Museum.' ' 

"And you have seen it?" said the Soldier- 
Boy. 

"Yes. Some day we will see it together. 
Meanwhile why not go now, at once, to the 
South Kensington Museum, where there is 
a good cast of Donatello's St. George? 11 

The Hall of Casts is rather an eerie place 
on a dim afternoon. The Present is domi- 
nated by the Past. As we wander among these 
dusty, crowded masterpieces, the mighty 
records of art assail us, and we seem to be 
the last of the living, entombed among the 
memorials of the great dead. The Soldier- 
Boy was silent, a little awe-struck, until I 
indicated to him Donatello's St. George stand- 
ing between a cast of The Shrine of St. Peter y 
Martyr, in Milan, and the Pulpit of the Bap- 
tistery in Pisa. He looked, he stared, and 
uttered a long-drawn out "Ah — h." 

St. George stands watchful in supple ar- 



6 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

mour, feet apart, ready to spring forward. 
His cloak tied at the neck, falls over his 
shoulders to his ankles; his hands touch, 
lightly but firmly, his great shield, resting on 
the ground and reaching to his waist; his 
face has the self-reliant, purposeful look of 
the great soldier, alert, fearing nothing, ready 
with his life as with his sword. In the face 
of this immortal warrior I see something 
more. I see the look that we see on the 
faces of those who have been fighting for us, 
when they come back for a little while, and 
a little rest (we have all seen it) ; the look, 
half ecstasy, half resignation, which says: 
"Who dies if England live!" 

"Donatello has given us St. George for all 
time. He is with our soldiers to-day as in 
the fourteenth, as in the fourth century." 

Then I looked down to the Soldier-Boy by 
my side and I saw in his eyes that he under- 
stood. 

"There is no need for the dragon," he said. 

"No," I replied, "Donatello knew that. 



THE SOLDIER-BOY 7 

The dragon is already overcome, because his 
adversary is St. George, and he has conquered 
Death, too. His soul is immortal, as is the 
soul of the Belgian people." 

Then the Soldier-Boy spoke rapidly and 
with a queer kind of shyness. "Look," he 
said, "Donatello's St. George isn't unlike 
the King of the Belgians. Really they might 
be brothers, and — and some Belgian soldiers 
have said that a shining figure like King 
Albert's has appeared in the trenches and has 
helped them, as St. George helped the Cru- 
saders. Can it be? How splendid to believe 
St. George lives on and on, aiding us if we 
believe." 

He stared at the figure of England's patron 
saint. It was his hour of consecration. 
Even then the red badge of St. George was 
being woven by invisible hands beneath his 
khaki tunic, and I have full faith that he will 
go into battle one of the great band, linked 
together through the centuries by the protect- 
ing presence of the Soldier-Saint. 



8 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

"Yes, Donatello understood," I said, as 
we turned away. "Prevision is the birth- 
right of the greatest artists. And to myself 
I whispered, call it, if you like, a prayer, 
'Soldier-Boy, thou art not alone.' " 



CHAPTER II 

IT IS WELL 

" Is it well with the child ? ' ' And she answered 
"It is well." — 2 Kings iv., 26. 

T^HIS war either numbs or enriches. There 
* are sights in hospitals, and in the streets 
too, that would break the heart if it could 
break; and after the hurricane of pity, and 
anger that such things are possible, comes 
numbness. There are stories about deeds 
done in the war so fired with selfless splen- 
dour, so great, so magnificent, that one is no 
longer ashamed of living in a world where to 
kill is a duty, but glad and proud to walk an 
earth peopled by "our blessed boys." Then 
comes enrichment. And since evil must pass, 
and good must last, it is wiser to dwell on 
the enrichment of our lives through those who 
9 



io THE SOLDIER-BOY 

have died for us, than to be numbed by 
sorrow. They cannot really die. Innumer- 
able families know that. Those happy war- 
riors! Even the maimed smile. It is well 
with the boys and with us, in whose hearts 
they live for evermore. 

Tears are near to smiles nowadays. There 
is one enrichment story that I have often 
told, and if it sometimes brought tears they 
were tears of gratitude for such human hap- 
penings. Far away it happened, months 
ago it happened, during the campaign in 
German South- West Africa, and the men who 
have given us this immortal memory be- 
longed to the Imperial Light Horse. Some 
fell in the fight, and their comrades, before 
they passed on, wrote on the rough memorial, 
above the lonely grave, these words: "Tell 
England, ye that pass this monument, that we 
who rest here died content.' ' So these sons 
of England are united to the sons of Sparta. 

That enrichment came swiftly back to me 
yesterday, and for long I saw nothing but the 



IT IS WELL ii 

sandy plain, and the few sparse trees, and 
the silent cross, and those few words, so far 
away from England. It all came back to 
me because in the Sphere, among the war 
pictures that one looks at, and shudders in 
the act of looking, there was one, a few inches 
square, showing this lonely, distant grave, 
the cross, and the placard. A few inches 
square, yet it filled the wide world, enriching 
it. "We who rest here died content." 

What does it mean, this something in man 
that astonishes and outlives death? That it 
may prevail he dies gladly, renouncing all he 
has — life — for a cause, for his country, for his 
God. All creeds, all shades of belief and 
unbelief are united in the acknowledgment, 
common to all, of the inexpressible greatness 
of sacrifice. Therein all mankind is one in 
Christ. Can it be that out of the horror of 
this war will come the conviction, no longer 
a mere serious pastime, that the things which 
are not seen are eternal, and that to find 
them, and to make them real is the true and 



12 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

only quest of life? The eyes of us who linger 
wearily at home are still clouded with the 
fond delusions of unrealities, but those who 
receive letters from the front, where our 
brothers face horrible realities, know that 
they are realising the unseen things in a way 
that may change the world. One, a surgeon, 
after remarking quietly, that the house in 
which he had collected some wounded was 
shelled and all killed except himself, adds: 
"So it seems that I am to be spared to serve 
my country a little longer." No thought 
you observe, of self — only of his country. 
Another writes: "On such a day as this, one 
wishes to read well-expressed words which 
deal with eternal things" — that was the day 
after the great advance, and he adds: "War 
is incredibly dreadful. I say incredible with 
meaning, for I fail to understand how these 
blessed boys of ours face with unflinching 
courage what they do face. . . . It is a mat- 
ter, I suppose, of faith in the ultimate good." 



IT IS WELL 13 

I know how one has faced it, and he, in his 
young, brave way, life just opening, also 
had faith in the ultimate good. He was near 
to me, and if I write about him at all it must 
be very plainly and simply. We knew him 
as Jack, officially he was No. 2585, Private 
J. M. Hind, the only son of his parents, and 
my nephew. A lithe, delicate-looking boy, 
loving the simple give-and-take of life, just 
a merry English boy, who sang well and 
danced well, and worked with a lilt. He 
joined at the beginning of the war; he saw 
his duty clear; he ran to it as to a sweetheart, 
and when he was billeted in a nice house he 
would not sleep in a bed — "because, you 
know, I must get used to roughing it." The 
journey to Flanders was a great adventure. 
Of discomfort, of hardships, he never wrote: 
his first letter from the trenches was a paean 
of admiration for some veteran who took 
him into his care and taught him the new 
warfare. He proved himself a good soldier. 
There was talk of a commission, and joy, of 



14 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

coming home. We waited. All was well. 
We should soon see our Soldier-Boy again. 
The papers were signed, but he fell in the 
great advance, in the moment of victory. 

Slight frame and lion heart, now merry, 
now grave — Jack. He had just passed his 
twentieth birthday when he died for Eng- 
land, and now he rests somewhere in Flanders 
■ — content. Is it so very wrong to envy him? 

One of his last letters tells of a sermon at 
church parade. The text was "And under- 
neath are the Everlasting Arms," and the 
preacher "told us in well-chosen words that, 
whatever happens, we need never fear death 
for such a glorious cause, but rather to look 
upon it as an angel in disguise." The boy 
added, in his own simple words, "I was fully 
in agreement with his remarks." 

So this war may enrich. His faith strength- 
ens our weakness, his sacrifice sanctifies us. 
Little Jack, or the British Expeditionary 
Force, was but one of many — so many who 
have given all, and who are content. In 



IT IS WELL 15 

our sorrowful hearts joy begins to glimmer. 
For we know that it is well with the boys, 
and with our boy, and, with us, through our 
love for them. Little Jack, No. 2585, of the 
British Expeditionary Force: 

Adieu ! 

What need of tears 

Or fears, 

For you? 



CHAPTER III 

THE SENTINEL 

T WAS trying to write — trying. But it 
* seemed so futile to toy with words, to 
grope for ideas, when all the world is aflame, 
and to live we must kill. 

How can one write when the mind is filled 
with incidents of heroism, of self-sacrifice 
and horror? Shall we ever forget that in 
August, 1 9 14, the world suddenly became 
real, ghastly, magnificent — and life inex- 
plicable? Yet even as I was trying to see 
through the blur of blood, something — con- 
solatory, hopeful — lightened the darkness. 
What was it? Something in a cherished 
poem — something about a Sentinel whisper- 
ing in the deep night. Suddenly the gleam 

vanished. I threw down my pen. Reverie 
16 



THE SENTINEL 17 

was stormed by action. Who can write 
when he can see, hear, share, even for a 
moment, in reality, in the splendid side of 
war? I heard the call of bugles, the tap of 
drums, and then the little army in the making 
marched past along the sea-front, and there 
were cheers, the flashing of handkerchiefs, 
and a passion of longing to join those youths 
of England all afire. Many were in civilian 
clothes. I can never see those boys in their 
office suits without a catch in the throat. 

They sang. They whistled. The air they 
whistled was the Marseillaise, and the song 
they were singing was not Fall In! for that 
inspiriting recruiting song had already done 
its fine work for them. They had fallen in, 
and the song they now sang was It's a long, 
long way to Tipper ary. Such discord, such 
delicious discord ! Who can explain why this 
raw, rough ballad became the marching song 
of our army? I think I know. One line 
has made it so — "It's a long, long way to 
Tipperary" — a line which has a surface 



18 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

meaning and an inner meaning into which 
each soldier can read his own thoughts. It's 
a long, long way to victory, to the cross on 
the breast, or the cross on the field of honour, 
ay! and to the heavenly city some may 
think — well done, thou good and faithful 
soldier. Yes, Tipperary you are exalted 
above all other towns — you with your butter 
market no miles south-west of Dublin, you 
who made some stir in the Plan of Campaign 
of 1890 — you have inspired the marching 
song of our little army, the made, and in the 
making. It's a long, long way, little army — 
but you'll arrive, and our hearts are with you 
— there. 

They passed on whistling the Marseillaise 
and singing this song, and through the dear 
discord I tried to catch the words. I couldn't 
go on writing ; life has changed. The refrain 
buzzed in my head. I thought of the last 
time I had heard it — which was yesterday, 
hummed by a soldier in a railway carriage. 
With him I had a little talk. 



THE SENTINEL 19 

He was tall, bronzed, and young. He did 
not read, and I refrained from offering him 
one of my six newspapers. Clearly his mind 
was full of great memories, and he hummed 
that song, and there was thought in his eyes 
as he sat gazing at the happy English land- 
scape — so peaceful. I scanned his uniform, 
but could not place him. His badge was 
unfamiliar. When we reached our destina- 
tion, this seaside town, I said as he stepped 
upon the platform, "Will you tell me your 
regiment?" "Royal Flying Corps," he 
answered. "Then you will have some fun," 
I hazarded. He smiled. "I've just come 
back. Got my machine smashed up. Come 
home to get another." He went off some- 
where, "to get another," and as he went he 
whistled, " It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 
it's a long, long way to go . . ." 

He was quite happy. Yes, those who go 
are the happy ones. It is awful to sit at 
home at ease, but our hearts are uplifted at 
the thought of those who have gone, who are 



20 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

going, who have come back to get well, and 
to go again. West of where I sit is a mighty 
camp. To the east the hill tops are a maze 
of little forts and barbed-wire entanglements 
and inland is a hospital filled with wounded. 
And this is England! And out there, in 
grim disarray, the battle rages and our men 
encounter death as a bride, and agony as a 
friend. I try to write, but all it means, all 
it may mean, sweeps ever this luckless stay- 
at-home, and I strive to recall the passage 
that was trying to console me when I sat 
down to write. 

Yes, I know it — you know it. It comes to 
mind, it whispers, and in a moment the cloud 
lifts. I renounce apprehension and receive 
with ecstasy the idea of that Sentinel — "Who 
moves about from place to place, And whis- 
pers to the worlds of space, In the deep night, 
that all is well." Yes, " All is well, tho' faith 
and form Be sunder' d in the night of fear." 
He moves about, that Sentinel, from place 
to place — here, in the camp, at the front, in 



THE SENTINEL 21 

the homes of those who have died on the field 
of honour, over the many, many little graves, 
by the wounded and the lost. They smile, 
knowing — all is well. 

Right well is it for those who are fighting 
and training to fight for this dear land. 
Again I hear the shouts. See, the men are 
marching back to camp, some in khaki, some 
in their home clothes, all with heads so high; 
and hats are raised, and there are cheers, but 
louder than all in my ears is that delicious 
discord — the Marseillaise and — 

It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 

It's a long, long way to go; 
It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 

To the sweetest girl I know ! 
Good-bye, Piccadilly; 

Farewell, Leicester-square ; 
It's a long, long way to Tipperary, 

But my heart's right there ! 

No, we don't laugh at the words, and the 
air to which they are set will never be 
forgotten while we live. "It's a long, long 



22 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

way to Tipperary" — we all know what that 
means! Brothers, it's a long, long way, 
strewn with the brave, our beloved, who have 
died for us ; but we shall be — there. We may 
not yet see this City of a song, but a light 
shines above the spires, and the Sentinel is 
with us all the way. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE UNDYING THINGS 

I\ /I Y friend was a soldier who would will- 
* " * ingly have been a preacher-painter; 
but he had no talent. His genius was for 
friendship. Love guided this pilgrim-soldier. 
Art he loved, and in her by-ways he found 
some consolation for his mediocrity. In his 
leisure time he delighted to lose himself in 
making minute pen drawings of umbrageous 
trees, and in copying pictures, such as The 
Visitation, by "The Master of the Life of 
Mary," and The Merciful Knight who Forgave 
his Enemy, by Burne-Jones. Of course he had 
a vast admiration for Watts. One day he 
said to me, with his slow, sad smile: "I like 
Watts because life is greater than art, and 
Watts, the man, was greater than Watts, 
23 



24 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

the artist." His favourites were The Shud- 
dering Angel, The Happy Warrior, and Sic 
Transit Gloria Mundi, of which he made a 
laborious copy. 

This copy hung in the studio that his 
mother had built for him in the garden ad- 
joining her house, and when I chided him for 
cherishing so sad a theme he said: "That 
picture is a reminder to me of the Undying 
Things." 

He died for his country. It was a gallant 
death. 

Sometimes I think that he might have 
written the last letter that the soldier in that 
fine little book called Aunt Sarah and the War 
wrote to his sweetheart from the front the 
night before he was killed ; that he might have 
written the postscript to that letter — one 
line only — "Remember, dear, that Love out- 
lasts death." It does, for us, for you, and 
for me, anyhow. My visit of condolence 
to his mother was hardly bearable. His 
sweetheart was there, too. What can one 



THE UNDYING THINGS 25 

say? They were so brave. But I think they 
wanted to be alone. So did I. They let me 
go into the studio, by myself, for a little while. 

Nothing had been changed, but one white 
flower had been placed on a table by the side 
of Sic Transit, which hung on the west wall. 
It is not a picture that appeals to me; this 
was not even a good copy, and it gave me no 
consolation. Anger, I am afraid, was upper- 
most in my mind, resentment at the waste 
of life, at the suffering of the innocent, at the 
misery of the world, at the menace of the 
future. And as I brooded bitterly somebody 
seated himself by my side. I did not like 
this intrusion, and yet it seemed natural. 
I did not turn my head. I accepted his 
presence without comment. 

I looked at the shrouded figure of the 
dead warrior in Watt's picture — awesome, 
not beautiful — I thought of my friend be- 
neath the French soil in some unrecorded 
place, and death seemed hateful, and life a 
horrid game of chance. My friend was gone 



26 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

for evermore. The grey picture grew greyer 
and sadder in the lessening light. "Why 
did he like it?" I murmured. 

The Companion by my side, whose pres- 
ence I felt, without looking at him, answered : 
"Look at the lettering painted above the 
dead warrior — three groups of five words 
each. The first says, 'What I spent I had.' 
The second says, 'What I saved I lost.' 
The third says, ' What I gave I have. ' That 
was why your friend loved this picture, be- 
cause of these words. They tell of the un- 
dying things. And you will remember, if 
you will but soar out of the gloom in which 
you have allowed yourself to be submerged, 
that once your friend quoted to you in 
a letter something that Watts had written 
about the undying things. It was this — 
'All that is most real and best in our lives 
is that which has no material reality — senti- 
ment, love, honour, patriotism — these con- 
tinue when the material things pass away.' " 

"Yes, I remember, but are not such sug- 



THE UNDYING THINGS 27 

gestions merely a kind of drug to fortify us 
against the hopelessness of life? Is not this 
insistence upon the undying things merely 
an amiable conspiracy to make the living be- 
lieve that all is well, and to keep them endur- 
ing to the end. What of his mother and 
sweetheart? How does his death help them? 
How does it help me or the world?" 

"You must take wider views," said my 
Companion. "You must look beyond the 
present, and yet you need not. What you 
call death is but the gate of life, and if the 
newspapers are full of sorrow, gloom, and 
hatred, they are also full of heroism, sacri- 
fice, and transfiguring love. The world has 
discovered no finer destiny than to die for a 
cause, an ideal, and if we are not allowed thus 
to die we can accept joyfully what is perhaps 
more difficult — the daily torture of living 
for it without capitulation, whatever may be 
the odds. The undying things are of God — 
endless, and the world cannot touch them, 
and he who clings to them overcomes the 



28 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

world and uplifts it according to his faith 
in the undying things. That is what your 
friend believed. Love outlasts death, and 
the flame of his love will grow brighter if you 
will rigorously attune yourself to it. All that 
was fine in him remains to uplift you and 
those who loved him." 

"Who are you?" I asked. "It is strange, 
but all you say I have myself sometimes felt 
and believed." 

Then my Companion said: "I am you. 
Not the you of the dark hour. I am the 
real you. Love outlasts death, and your 
friend who died is alive always, to rebuild 
and make permanent the real you — the 
undying you, which may help others as he 
is helping you. What he gave you have." 



And I was alone, as I had been, and yet 
not alone. 



CHAPTER V 

WISDOM 

HPO be a soldier, to be a drop in the great 

* river of effort and sacrifice is not for 

me. But we must all be patient and brave, 

we who are condemned to flounder on at 

home in the sand-clogged delta of that great 

river — watching and waiting. We peer for 

the gleam, we strain to hear the eternal voices; 

we seek wisdom; we look foward to the 

Ultimate Good. 

Unable to be a soldier, I would, if the 

choice were given me, among all those who 

plod through the delta using tongue, pen, or 

pencil, I would choose to be Louis Raemaek- 

ers. This Dutch cartoonist, a real and fine 

artist, this florid, thick-set neutral with the 

full, roving eyes and the quick, virile move- 
29 



30 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

ments, has in his great heart, which is univer- 
sal, not Dutch, a passion for justice and 
righteousness, and a hatred and scorn for 
hypocrisy, brutality, and all the vile misuse 
of strength connoted by the words — Prussian 
militarism. His cartoons are done with a 
decoration of artistic beauty that make the 
sting and cut of their satire doubly terrible. 
So I, who have but words for the expression 
of my feelings, glory in the cartoons of Louis 
Raemaekers, and gloat over their truth. 
Had I my will I would gather them all into a 
book, print a million copies, and scatter them 
through the neutral and belligerent world. 
The ancient Hebrews being "uncivilised," 
had no name for the Eternal Father. The 
name of names, the name of the Holy of 
Holies, was not to be mentioned in speech 
or writing. Nearer than breathing, closer 
than hands and feet was He, but to be ap- 
proached only in secret, through the hidden 
way of the spiritual life. The Prussian, 
being " civilised," engraves on his helmet 



WISDOM 31 

the words Gott mit uns. I rage whenever I 
see one of those sacrilegious helmets flaunt- 
ing in a London shop window. But what 
are words? The clear-seeing Raemaekers 
has stated all I feel in a cartoon. The 
Kaiser, a forlorn figure, shouts to the rulers 
of Austria, Bulgaria, and Turkey, who kneel 
submissively behind him — "At the command 
'Gott mit uns' you will go for them." Think 
of our fearless, God-reverencing boys, and 
be thankful for Raemaekers, a neutral. 

At the exhibition of his cartoons I listen 
to the comments of the visitors, for it is in- 
articulate England that will utter the final 
word about the war. That elderly English 
clergyman and his wife, with their out-of-the- 
world air, what do they think of the war, 
and of Raemaekers' s judgments? They were 
standing before The Marshes of Pinsk, an 
autumn landscape showing a flood, and borne 
down upon it are the many bodies of young 
dead soldiers. Beneath it is this legend: 
"The Kaiser said last spring, 'When the 



32 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

leaves fall you'll have peace.' They have 
it." The woman sobbed. "Poor boys, poor 
boys, ' ' she moaned. ' ' They meant no wrong ; 
they did but do their duty, like our boy." 

Her husband led her away. They stopped 
before a sketch of a young Highlander dying 
on the field of battle. A German pauses 
before him and touches his body compassion- 
ately. The boy murmurs with his last 
breath: "Is it you, mother?" I thought the 
woman would break down. "Hush," whis- 
pered her husband. "The souls of the right- 
eous are in the hand of God. ... In the 
sight of the unwise they seemed to die — but 
they are in peace." "Where is that from?" 
she asked, speaking like one comforted. 
" Wisdom hi., I," he answered, and furtively 
slipped his handkerchief into her hand. 

I went out into the frosty streets, and from 
the clear sky it seemed as if a voice was 
repeating what the old man has said: "In 
the sight of the unwise they seemed to die — 
but they are in peace." I knew the words, 



WISDOM 33 

but whence came they? Who said them? 
What is wisdom? We know it when it comes 
— that is all. I looked up to the flying 
clouds, and had the vision of which John Hay 
wrote, of the Everlasting Angels who hover 
above us, knowing everything, judging every- 
thing, telling the truth about everything. 
It seemed that if I could once get away from 
the streets and the crowds and the babble, 
there must be some place, within or without, 
where I could commune with those Ever- 
lasting Angels, perhaps our own particular 
Guardian Angels, and learn from them wis- 
dom and remember it always. Who gave us 
the wisdom to know that our beloved who 

are gone are in peace? Who . 

All of us, even in ecstatic moments, are 
still of the earth, loving the spectacle of 
bright heroic things; and I, suddenly, at the 
sight of a corps of Flying Men swinging 
down the street, forget everything but them. 
These gay and jaunty bird-like men with 
their dandy caps, their tight uniforms, and 



34 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

their air of responsible irresponsibility, are 
the new note of the war. They are like no 
other soldiers; they are not of the earth; 
the stars are their counsellors; they have 
taken on the freedom of the air, the unfet- 
tered mystery of space, and, in doing so, 
they have become quick and alert and re- 
mote like birds. The stupid streets are not 
for them; their home is towards the stars; 
they soar; they consort with the Everlasting 
Angels, who watch and talk gravely, with 
infinite wisdom, of our poor doings. O, to 
be a Bird Man to rise higher and higher, 
away from chatter and error to where the 
great heart of wisdom waits! Then, in a 
flash, knowledge came to me. The thought 
of the Bird Men and their untram- 
melled flight into space cleared my muddy 
brain. Wisdom iii., i. Why, of course, the 
old man was quoting from the Wisdom of 
Solomon. 

I went home, found Wisdom iii., I, and 
read — "But the souls of the righteous are in 



WISDOM 35 

the hand of God, and there shall no torment 
touch them. In the sight of the unwise they 
seemed to die; and their departure is taken 
for misery, and their going from us to be 
utter destruction; but they are in peace." 

Then I turned to the first chapter of Wis- 
dom and read — "For froward hearts sepa- 
rate from God." . . . "For the Spirit of the 
Lord filleth the world." . . . "For God 
made not death; neither hath He pleasure 
in the destruction of the living." . . . "For 
wisdom is a loving spirit." 

I lowered the lights and opened the window 
to a great night of stars, peace, and the pres- 
ence of our angels, our dear ones, everlasting 
and intimate, whom we knew on earth, and 
whom we will know again. All was well, 
for it was plain that, whatever man may do, 
wisdom had spoken. And He will carry on, 
not in the helmet, in the heart. 



CHAPTER VI 

TO A SUBALTERN 

VfOU read an article of mine called "Wis- 
dom" ; you sent me a brief letter about 
it, which touched me more than I can say. 
It was modest and frank ; soldier-like, it faced 
squarely your gleam of the vision beautiful. 
You gave no address, no name; you signed 
yourself simply "Yours gratefully, Subal- 
tern/' and the only knowledge I have about 
you is your statement that you are a soldier 
"who has seen some service in Flanders." 
That is enough. Dear friend, never tell me 
anything more. I intend to cherish the idea 
that you, unknown to me, are of the kin of 
St. George and St. Denis, and that wherever 
you are, whatever your lot, you belong to 

those over whom death cannot prevail. You 
36 



TO A SUBALTERN 37 

fight the good fight against evil, you are on 
the side of the spiritual man who wants 
nothing, against the material man who de- 
mands everything. You fight for Christ 
against the devil, for St. George against the 
dragon, for love against hate. Remember 
always those grave, gracious words of truth 
that Romain Rolland has uttered: "For the 
finer spirits of Europe there are two dwelling- 
places; our earthly fatherland, and that other 
City of God. To the one let us give our lives 
and our faithful hearts; but neither family, 
friend, nor fatherland, nor aught that we love, 
has power over spirit . The spi rit is the Light . ' ' 
You will fight cleanly and dauntlessly, 
you will take no thought of self. Let me 
tell you that to be a soldier, nowadays, is to 
be one of the great army of the consecrated, 
so human, so dear, of whom sometimes we 
have a hurried glimpse, laden with their 
battered accoutrements, spattered with the 
mud of Flanders, laughing and singing songs; 
and some are grave, our soldier-stalwarts, so 



38 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

human, so dear, who have enlisted in the 
cause of righteousness, to whom the White 
Comrade is a reality and victory a sure event. 
You, my subaltern, will fight valiantly, but 
in your heart there is a little trouble, a natural 
longing. In your communication you say: 
— "If my letter conveys to you the earnest 
desire that men have, for the spiritual reasons 
for their part in this war to be sustained 
and impressed upon them, I shall not have 
written in vain." 

It is hard, I know, soldier, to be conscious 
always that behind the brutality and stupid- 
ity of war the lights of the City of the Soul 
shine unquenchable; because they shine you 
must fight, and keep their glow in your heart 
while your body contends for England, her 
homes and village greens, and for the child- 
ren who will be England when we have 
passed on. He who fights for freedom fights 
for England, and he who dies for England 
dwells in God with those who made our land 
and in our protection left it. 



TO A SUBALTERN 39 

The war rages. "Nothing the same," cry 
our publicists, "now and henceforth." That 
is true of the material world. But in the 
spiritual world the whisper is "Everything 
the same" to-day and for ever. Nothing, 
neither principalities, nor powers, neither 
suffering nor sorrow, neither victory nor 
defeat can quench, if your heart wills, one 
flicker of your spiritual life. It is always 
silently accompanying the real You, always 
your very own. The flame cannot be seen, 
so we make symbols of it for our comfort; 
they are but symbols, and it is you alone who 
can fan the flame. 

It is hard, soldier, in the awfulness of this 
war, to keep the flame of the spiritual life 
steadily burning without fuss and without 
talk; but this, the greatest of all life's adven- 
tures, has got to be carried through to victory. 
The prize, the crown, like the Victoria Cross, 
is valueless, yet beyond price. Win that 
and we shall win the other crown against 
our material enemy. Love turns his head 



40 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

away from the lust for power and domination 
to be won at any cost, but love will prevail 
through simple art of loving to the end, 
and because love is eternal, spiritual, and 
the other is temporal, material. This is 
the Christmas season when we venerate the 
obeisance of the pomp and power of the world 
to Undying Love, and the custom will never 
cease, because it holds an immortal truth. 
You may have seen those small, grave pic- 
tures of The Adoration of the Magi, by the 
nameless masters of the Rhine valley, who 
live only as the "Master of the Life of Mary," 
the " Master of the Holy Kinship," and other 
holy and humble titles cloaking these un- 
f or gotten Teutons, to whom the spiritual 
was more real than the material. Therefore 
the mystics of the Rhine valley will live and 
move when Prussianism has followed into 
the darkness other ugly dreams. 

Well, in the collection of cartoons by 
Raemaekers there is just such a picture. It 
is in quiet, tender colours, and at first sight 



TO A SUBALTERN 41 

it might be a rendering of The Adoration of 
the Magi, wrought by a primitive painter, 
some mystic of the Rhine or the Meuse val- 
leys, in lonely ecstasy. But look closer. 
You perceive that the grim King who kneels 
is the Kaiser ; his offer is a menacing, shining 
shell. The second King is the Austrian 
Emperor; his offering is a model of a Maxim 
gun. The third is the Sultan of Turkey; 
his offering is a blood-stained, curling knife. 
And the Child to whom these twentieth cen- 
tury offerings are made, on the eve of the 
holy Christmas season, by the rulers of the 
material world — the Child, Undying Love, 
turns away in tears and hides His face in 
His Mother's bosom. 

It is your lot, soldier, your high privilege, 
to dry those tears, to turn the face of Un- 
dying Love again to the tormented race of 
man with the smile of understanding, com- 
passion, and healing. The task is hard, 
soldier, and yet very easy if we but remember 
that although material power seems to domi- 



42 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

nate the world — that is not so. We must 
fight this material menace of greed and wil- 
ful destruction, using our utmost efforts to 
vanquish and crush it; but it is from the 
hidden seed of the spiritual world, here 
around us, in our hearts, that victory will 
blossom. Fight the good fight with clear 
brain and strong right arm, but remember 
also that the final triumph (the coming of 
the Kingdom of God, as well as the defeat of 
the enemy of God) draws nearer each time 
you deny the passing supremacy of evil and 
affirm the eternity of good. Every heroic, 
self-denying act in this war is an expression 
of good — God: every victory in your own 
heart and nature, each choice you make of 
the spiritual over the material, each sacrifice 
of the individual for the great cause will help 
to dry that Child's tears, lessen the misery 
of this man-made war, and bring us nearer 
to our rightful and real home, that spiritual 
kingdom where Good reigns, where there is 
no sense of evil, for Love has won. 



TO A SUBALTERN 43 

We dare much in the material world — you 
soldiers dare everything. We must also 
dare much in our search for the spiritual 
world, and be unafraid. It is hard, I know, 
soldier, to keep the flame alive, but I pray 
you burn it bravely, unseen but eager, know- 
ing that no material blast can ever quench 
it. "Why did the lamp go out?" asked the 
sage. "I shaded it with my cloak, to save 
it from the wind," answered the student. 

Remember, soldier, that there is no wind, 
however wild, can darken your lamp if you 
are as fearless in the spiritual world as you 
are in the material. My heart, unseen, fol- 
lows you through your ordeal. Dry the 
tears of that Child, my soldier, before another 
Christmas dawns. Our prayers enfold you, 
our confidence encompasses you. 



CHAPTER VII 

THE SENSITIVE 

TT is not well to be a Sensitive in these days. 
* Neither his apprehension nor his poetry 
is needed. He is unhappy, being a Sensitive 
— worse, he is apt to be useless. The world 
needs optimism, the conviction that right 
will prevail, and a faith that no assaults can 
weaken. It is exhilarating to talk with a 
Soldier; it is sad to listen to a Sensitive. Yet 
the Sensitive with whom I chatted yesterday 
finally exhilarated me, after he had stum- 
bled to a resolution (which I hope he will 
keep). 

The afternoon was grey and gusty. I was 
standing in a windy place watching a com- 
pany, who are too old to join the new Army, 
drilling for home defence. It was splendid. 
44 



THE SENSITIVE 45 

They were carrying on. Some were over 
sixty, many were bald-headed and large of 
girth, and as they drilled they panted and 
perspired. It was difficult for some of them 
to stoop, but they went through all the evo- 
lutions gallantly. Their spirit conquered 
their distress. One was a writer (he had 
also been a grandfather for years), who, in 
the happy times of peace, would be seated, 
at this hour, before his library table sur- 
rounded by a zareba of reference books. 
Now he finds himself clad in a white sweater, 
doubling round a quadrangle, listening not 
to the hesitant voice of the Muse, but to the 
sharp word of command. I saluted him. 
He smiled. I felt ennobled. His country 
had called, and he was " doing his bit" for 
England. I thought of Henley's poem — 
Henley who should have lived to see this 
day — that sight, those elderly men forcing 
their time-worn bodies to be soldierlike, for 
England. But Henley was there in spirit. 
The dead do not forsake us, and to my heart 



46 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

from somewhere came his poem — "What have 
I done for you, England, my England?" 

A little later I spoke the lines aloud, for 
the Sensitive (he is under forty) suddenly 
appeared at my side. I waved towards 
squad D and said: 

What have I done for you, 

England, my England? 
What is there I would not do, 

England, my own? 

They call you proud and hard, 

England, my England: 
You with words to watch and ward, 

England, my own ! 

Ever the faith endures, 

England, my England: — 
Take and break us; we are yours, 

England, my own! 

I couldn't go on with the poem. 

The Sensitive's eyes filled with tears. 
That is one of the many disadvantages of 
being a Sensitive. The tears come so readily. 



THE SENSITIVE 47 

The Sensitive spoke. "I've been doing 
indoor work — helping to organise — but I'm 
not a good organiser, and I never quite 
grasped what we were organising. I'm 
afraid I was rather in the way. I'm super- 
fluous. I can't settle to anything. This 
awful war weighs on me like a disease. I 
envy the soldiers. I envy the dead. I envy 
all who have escaped this cataclysm. I 
want to help, but my little gift, my verses, 
which are my moments of insight, don't 
come now. Yet the poets have their place 
— haven't they? Henley was lame. He 
couldn't have fought; he couldn't have 
drilled. Yet that poem of his, that message 
from the past, is an inspiration to-day. He 
lives still; he still encourages us. Shall I go 
down to the camps and recite England, my 
England to the troops? Or shall I join this 
company here and drill? I feel sometimes 
that I could do anything so long as it is not 
clerical work or organising. I want harden- 
ing; I want to escape from myself." 



48 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

We went home by the Tube, and for two 
stations he moaned over the state of this 
unpardonable world. "England, my Eng- 
land," he murmured, "to think of it, the 
only way to preserve you is to kill Germans. 
Logically, that's the only thing to do, and 
this in the year of our Lord 191 6. But for 
those who are not called to kill Germans or 
to succour Belgians I suppose the next best 
thing is to go on doing our nearest duty just 
as well as we can." 

I nodded. 

"A man helped me last night," continued 
the Sensitive. "I called upon him at a late 
hour, and found him engrossed at his desk. 
'What are you doing?' I asked. He dis- 
sembled. I insisted. At last he said — 
'When the war broke out I concentrated in 
my leisure time, on the most difficult and 
most arduous piece of work that I could 
invent. I forced my mind to control the 
whims of my body.' That man's example 
helped me," said the Sensitive. "He had 



THE SENSITIVE 49 

chosen the hardest duty, and was doing it 
with set teeth." 

Suddenly the Sensitive clutched my arm. 
The train was at a station. "Look," he 
cried, indicating a placard on which was dis- 
played this announcement — "Join the Volun- 
teer Reserve for his Majesty's Fleet. Apply 
the Commanding Officer, R.N.V.R., Head- 
quarters, Commercial-road." 

He was silent for awhile. The soul of 
him was working. 

"I hate the sea," said the Sensitive. The 
words exploded from him. "I loathe ma- 
chinery, the mere idea of submarines appals 
me, but I'll do it. I'll join the Volunteer 
Reserve. I will. God help me." 

I looked into his eyes. Verily I believe 
that he had taken his resolution, that he had 
chosen his "hardest duty, and would set his 
teeth to it." 

Later his imagination began to play around 
the extremes of his destiny. I do not think 
he quailed, but he saw the worst, not the 



50 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

best. You cannot cease being a Sensitive 
instantly. 

"In the wintry sea," he said, "with per- 
haps half my body blown away, I would like 
to shout with my mouth if that be still intact, 
'Take and break us: we are yours, England, 
my own.' That would be the heroic part 
of me, so long obscured; but my heart, the 
faithful heart of my mother, in me, would 
long to cry out to the broken bits of men 
struggling in the water — 'Little children, in 
spite of all this horror, in spite of the heaped- 
up agony of the world, it is true, essential 
truth, that "God is love, and he that dwell- 
eth in love dwelleth in God and God in him." 
The victory is yours, little children. ' I 
should like that to be the last utterance of 
an obscure sailorman to the world in these 
days, when England's sons find it necessary 
to offer their lives, not for conquest, but for 
an Ideal." 

The Sensitive ceased. I am sure he meant 
what he said. And because he meant it, 



THE SENSITIVE 51 

because it was his moment of insight, what- 
ever his fate may be, quick death or splendid 
life, that statement of unassailable faith, in 
a moment of insight, of escape from self, 
may be his "bit," his message — so old, so 
young, so faded, so fresh — to the uncon- 
querable soul of our determined race, plodding 
grimly but gaily to Victory. 

Ever the faith endures, 
England, my England. 



CHAPTER VIII 

THE QUIET ROOM 

A GAIN a poem has been eluding, yet 
** comforting me. How does it run, and 
who wrote it? Memory will not recall that 
poem of consolation born of the spirit. You 
may be sure that it was very simple, and 
sincere, for in these times all else irritates. 
It was as simple and sincere as Lord Roberts's 
message to the world (almost his last) given 
through a friend. "We must do what we 
consider to be our duty — then we are in 
God's hands." The poem and the poet will 

recur to me soon, I am sure. Meanwhile . 

Banishing the idea of the poem, I returned 
to what I had been doing, which was some- 
thing quite unheroic. I had been turning 

the pages of the illustrated weekly journals. 
52 



THE QUIET ROOM 53 

In a little while I closed them, put the jour- 
nals away, hid them. I could not endure to 
look at the portraits of those who have died 
on the field of honour for our homes, for us, 
for England. They look so young, so hope- 
ful, so gallant. O yes, we envy them! We 
cannot help it. We may be giving our best, 
our poor best, but they have given every- 
thing. And nothing shall ever wrest from 
me — neither reason, nor argument, nor sor- 
row — the assurance that "They who die for 
England sleep with God." 

Happily, most of those who go out to 
fight carry through the ordeal with a light 
heart. I have never met an unhappy or an 
apprehensive soldier, and their letters from 
the front inspire in us gratitude, wonder, 
and relief. I read and re-read the following, 
written by a cavalry subaltern who had been 
in the trenches five days and nights, with 
shrapnel coming about two shells a minute: 
"It is all the best fun. I've never felt so 
well or so happy or enjoyed anything so 



54 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

much, and so does everybody. The fighting 
excitement vitalises everything, every sight, 
and word, and action.* ' 

Is it not wonderful? Truly it is some con- 
solation to us, waiting wearily at home, ach- 
ing for them, to know that our brothers can 
encounter horror with such intrepidity. The 
soldier is not introspective. He is under 
orders; he has something definite to do, and 
he does it dashingly. Yes, we may envy 
him, and if he dies quickly it is we who suffer. 
"Ours the pain. But his, oh, his the un- 
diminished gladness, the undecaying glory, 
the undeparted dream." It was R. L. 
Stevenson who wrote that before the war. 
It seems so long ago. That is the dividing 
line in our lives now — before and since the 
war. It pounds on. The world shakes. 
Our lives are changed and reformed. Many 
are glad to be alive in such an amazing period. 
The bereaved meet their losses with forti- 
tude, and with an inner joy that will rise, 
as time passes, like a spring, for they know 



THE QUIET ROOM 55 

that they have given their beloved for their 
country. What reward could be too great 
for those who have died on the field of hon- 
our? In our poor human tongue I can think 
of no fuller expression of all we hope for them, 
than that line, "They who die for England 
sleep with God." Each of the living, in his 
own soul, can give his own meaning to those 
words. 

Yesterday I visited a London hospital to 
see a wounded officer. I found my friend, 
mending slowly, but he could not move. It 
was quiet, in the ward only the hushed voices 
of the visitors, but there was one youth 
moaning near by. A shadow passed over my 
friend's face. I said to him: "Do the cries 
of that poor fellow upset you ? " " Oh, no," he 
answered, " I was thinking of — you." After 
he had told me how he had been wounded 
I asked if he slept well. He replied: 
"Not at first. I had awful nightmares, 
heard the bursting shrapnel, thought I was 
back in the trenches, and awoke to see those 



56 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

flowers on the table." He smiled — a smile 
of quiet happiness. His uniform hung at 
the bed-head, on the other side were the 
flowers, strewn over the quilt was a litter of 
papers. This soldier, now briefly at rest, 
was, for the first time, following the course 
of the war. He talked of getting well, of 
joining his comrades at the front again. He 
was a religious man, Life to him was duty. 
I thought of Lord Roberts's words — the creed 
of the Happy Warrior — "We must do what 
we consider to be our duty — then we are in 
God's hands." 



That night I sat in my room reflecting on 
those wounded ofhcers at the hospital, and 
rejoicing in their respite of peace, each in his 
quiet room. And, as I reflected, the poem 
that had been eluding yet comforting me 
suddenly came to mind, and I knew that it 
was by the Quaker poet Whittier, whose 
simple verses have comforted innumerable 



THE QUIET ROOM 57 

harassed souls. This poem was called The 
Meeting; 

And so I find it well to come 

For deeper rest to this still room; 

For here the habit of the soul 

Feels less the outer world's control; 

And from the silence multiplied 

By these still forms on every side, 

The world that time and sense have known 

Falls off, and leaves us God alone. 

Most moderns have foregone the beneficial 
habit of meditation, but in these times how 
salutary it is for us to retire into the Quiet 
Room for a little while. All becomes plain 
and sane again. 

The world that time and sense have known, 
Falls off, and leaves us God alone. 

God grant that it may be so to many! I 
sit here in the Quiet Room. I can bear now 
to think of those who have fallen, and in this 
moment of initiation I feel encouraged to 



58 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

change one word in that line from a poem 
which I have already written down. I would 
change it into — "Those who die for England 
wake with God." 



CHAPTER IX 

JUNE JOY 

T TE was home — wounded. His bed was 
* A in the last of the cubicles at the end 
of the long corridor- ward of the Hospital. 
In each bed was a man, and there were groans 
and cries. Sometimes I feared that I could 
never reach the end of that corridor without 
fainting ; but the thought of my friend, a mere 
boy, who flinched neither from the pain of his 
wound, nor from the daily probing, sustained 
me. One day his eyes motioned to something 
I had written for a morning paper. It was 
lying on the coverlet. "Read it," he whis- 
pered. I did so. "Too sad," he said. "I 
don't want to hear about the war. I want 
the old days. I want to hear about flowers, 
and poetry, and how the country looks in 

59 



60 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

June." So, next day, when I called, I read 
him this, written in the happy Before. 



Calling upon my friend Roger at that hour 
of mystery, a June twilight, I found him in 
rueful mood. Something had distressed this 
invalid author. Yet, he should be happy. 
His latest book, I may whisper to you, won 
the prize (a bound volume of Notes and 
Queries) for the prettiest dedication of the 
year. It ran: "To Hetty — she knows why." 

The lamps were unlighted in his sitting- 
room where I found Hetty trying with neat 
fingers, to unravel the string of a dumpy 
brown paper parcel. This couple belong 
to the class of string preservers. Roger, 
stretched on a couch, worried and weary, was 
watching Hetty. 

"What is it?" I asked, for Roger carries 
his joy or his grief on his face, conspicuous 
as a gala flag. 

"I've just paid two pounds and sixpence 



JUNE JOY 61 

to a taxi-cab driver for sheer pleasure. The 
extravagance of it lacerates me." 

" Perhaps it was worth while," I remarked. 

"Yes! A thousand times over and over 
again," cried Hetty. "Oh, Roger, what is 
two pounds and sixpence for this day of joy! 
Think of the light, and the flowers, the warm 
winds, the glorious trees ; think of the Thames 
from Richmond Hill; think of the peace of 
Ham Common ; think of the gratification of 
the driver when you paid him two pounds and 
sixpence. He gets a quarter of it for himself, 
and he has seven children. Think of " 

Here Uncle Ben, who was expected to 
supper, entered the room, having, I am sure, 
overheard Hetty's rush of words. He sank 
heavily into a chair, and said ominously: 
"I've come from Richmond by 'bus — three 
'buses. Proceed, Hetty." 

She rearranged the rug over Roger's knees, 
and began: "It all came about by chance. 
Roger and I are not taxi people, but this 
morning, on the way home from marketing, 



62 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

I saw a driver in a beautifully clean holland 
overall polishing the brass work of his cab, 
doing it lovingly. I nearly stopped. (Hetty 
is not very young.) I did stop, and boldly 
asked him what preparation he was using. 
He told me; he also told me that it was, in a 
way, his own cab, as he is a member of a little 
company of twenty-two men owning seven 
cabs. They receive 25 per cent, of the tak- 
ings, and pay for the petrol. His accent 
was educated, and (Hetty blushed) he sug- 
gested that it was a perfect day for a run to 
Richmond Park. Don't look cross, Uncle. 
Business was in his mind, not gallantry. 
Would you believe it, Roger had never 
been to Richmond Park, and he can't walk 
much; and his last birthday — oh! I forgot 
it." 

"Well?" said Uncle Ben. 

"I gave the man our address, and told 
him to call at 3 p.m. I never thought about 
the cost. It did not seem possible that any- 
body could ever pay more than five shillings 



JUNE JOY 63 

for a cab fare, or go farther than from Hamp- 
stead to Charing Cross in holiday time. He 
came. The cab was brand new. We started. 
the rapture of gliding through the greenery 
of the Park from Bayswater to Kensington 
this perfect June day! 

"To sit for the first time in a new motor, 
to skim through the world in perfect comfort, 
everything forgotten in the mere joy of seeing 
— Uncle, it's heaven ! We reached Hammer- 
smith in a dream — that awful eddy of traffic 
by the Broadway, usually an agony, was now 
a gay spectacle. We were at peace, every- 
body else in turmoil . I felt so selfish, yet so 
happy. Then the vistas of shining water 
from Hammersmith Bridge ! You loved that, 
Roger! I knew you did, because you at 
once wanted to declaim poetry. You pulled 
from your pocket your book of the moment 
— Faber's hymns, in the tattered brown- 
paper cover — and all across Barnes Common 
you crooned your favourites. It all seemed 
so true, didn't it, dear? We swept on, in 



64 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

radiance, in harmony, in hope — one with 
Faber when he sang: 

For the Love of God is broader 
Than the measure of man's mind; 

And the heart of the Eternal 
Is most wonderfully kind. 

Soon we found the world again — in the bright 
traffic of the Richmond Road. Then the 
turn into Priory Lane, and, through the 
trees, glimpses of the polo players. O 
strength! O rushing movements! O danc- 
ing colours ! O youth tingling with the joy of 
action ! happy, happy youth ! " (Hetty is 
no mean poet, and a great favourite in one of 
the most advanced circles of T. P's. Weekly.) 
"And so to our goal — Richmond Park. 
Ecstasy was that sweep round to Robin 
Hood Gate! Masses of rhododendrons, 
glimpses of distant water, oak-trees and 
tawny deer, young bracken, and the infinity 
of rolling green, — up, up, higher, higher, till 
we reached the topmost plateau, and there, 



JUNE JOY 65 

outstretched, swooning in light, was the rich 
Thames Valley, and beyond, losing themselves 
in the heat- drenched haze, the soft encircling 
hills." 

Uncle Ben placed a lozenge in his mouth, 
and masticated it vociferously. "Gas!" 
I could almost hear him say. 

"We surrendered ourselves to the chauf- 
feur," mumbled Roger. "I felt like a child 
taken by his governess for a holiday jaunt. 
He patronised us; he indicated the course of 
the Thames, feeling for its level through the 
valley. Then he said peremptorily: 'You 
must see Ham Common.' " 

4 'Is there anything more beautiful?" asked 
Hetty. 

"I shall always associate Ham Common 
with Strindberg," said Roger. 

Uncle Ben, who was becoming a little 
fidgety signalled a "Why?" 

Hetty smiled, and said: "We swept down 
through a lovely glade, out of the little lonely 
gate, and, would you believe it? we drove 



66 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

five times round the Common. We could 
not leave it. Peace had descended upon 
the world — peace and harmony, and even a 
glimpse of No. 101 motor-bus pounding back 
to the Strand did not disturb our tranquillity. 
At the beginning of the sixth round we 
stopped. I wanted to be alone for a few 
minutes in the quiet church. When I re- 
turned I found that Roger had just finished 
reading a four-column notice of the life and 
works of Strindberg in the Nation. There 
never was such a man as Roger for carrying 
books and papers with him." 

"Yes," said Roger, "and henceforward 
I'm saved from reading anything by Strind- 
berg. The duty menaced me. I dreaded 
it, shrank from the sloughs of disharmony, 
and, lo! a quotation of four words in that 
review saves me from muddling myself over 
Strindberg. Why should I bother about the 
excursions into materiality of his tormented 
intellect, his search for the path, for, on his 
deathbed he reached the point of enlighten- 



JUNE JOY 67 

ment which might have been his when he 
toddled from his child's crib.'' 

"And that was?" said Uncle Ben. 

"On his deathbed, Strindberg held up the 
Bible, and said: 'This alone is right.' " 

"As an impresario," continued Hetty, 
"our driver was a genius. He insisted on 
our visiting Richmond Hill for the view, and 
without more ado whirled us thither. Then 
he transported us back through the Park — 
silent trees, golden light, and the hush of 
eve — out into the Kingston Road, and up, 
over a surface smooth as a sheet of glass, 
to Wimbledon Common. But this fatherly 
driver had not finished with us yet. He 
whirled us to the Windmill; he dodged here 
and there over the Common, skirted a road 
bordered with comfortable houses, half- 
hidden in trees, to Putney Hill, and, would 
you believe it, not until we were delayed by 
the traffic on Putney Bridge did either of us 
look at the dial. We looked. It was awful ! " 

"We awoke from our dream," said Roger. 



68 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

"No, no!" cried Hetty. "There was still 
the Embankment, with the life of the river, 
the swirl of the water, and the glory of the 
light transfiguring the buildings into fairy 
palaces; there was still the majesty of West- 
minster, the peacocks and strange fowl strut- 
ting on the sward by the water in the Green 
Park; there was still the Mall, straight, 
spacious, sunny, and the old Palace of St. 
James's (all the wonder of London on a June 
evening) , and the blaze of flowers behind the 
railings of Park Lane; then home to hold for 
ever the amassed memories of this perfect 
day in June." 

"One pound eighteen on the dial, and half 
a crown tip, making two pounds and six- 
pence," said Roger, gloomily. 

There was silence in the quiet room. 
Hetty took the dumpy brown-paper parcel 
from the chair where she had placed it, and 
again began to unravel the string. This 
time she succeeded. It contained three 
books, crown 8vo, buckram, gilt — beautiful 



JUNE JOY 69 

books — and on the cover of each was a golden 
wreath of thorns and laurel, with the words: 
The Works of Francis Thompson; Verse and 
Prose. 

I glanced at Uncle Ben. In his thirst for 
culture he had, I had reason to know, because 
it was at my instigation, once agonized over 
The Bound of Heaven. 

Uncle Ben took the first volume in his mas- 
sive hand, and, as his fingers fluttered through 
the pages, he said, slowly: "I prefer Faber 
because I can understand him. He is sane 
and wholesome. So far as I am concerned 
Francis Thompson's poetry might be written 
in a foreign tongue. The meaning escapes 
me, sir, and I am not supposed to be a fool. 
I like poetry that you can learn by heart, and 
repeat to yourself when inclined." 

I began to be nervous, for Roger is an 
ardent Thompsonian, but my apprehension 
was allayed by a sudden light that flickered 
into Uncle Ben's eyes, a gleam of the fine old 
sporting instinct that is one of his pleasant- 



70 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

est attributes. Addressing Hetty, he said: 
44 I'll make you a bet," and, with a chuckle, 
"you needn't pay me if you lose. I'll close 
my eyes and put my finger on a chance page 
in this first volume, and Hetty, if you'll 
learn that page by heart in ten minutes I'll 
refund the two pounds and sixpence you 
spent on your Joy Ride." 

Dump went his finger upon a page, his 
watch flashed from its fob, the book was 
handed to Hetty, and, for ten minutes, 
the tenseness of the silence was almost 
unbearable. 

"Time's up," cried Uncle Ben, taking the 
book. Whereupon the admirable Hetty re- 
peated, without a fault, the poem called 
Love and the Child, on which Uncle Ben's 
finger had rested. In her clear voice she 
recited: 

Why do you so clasp me, 
And draw me to your knee? 
Forsooth, you do but chafe me, 
I pray you let me be: 



JUNE JOY 71 

I will but be loved now and then 
When it liketh me! 

So I heard a young child, 
A thwart child, a young child, 
Rebellious against love's arms, 
Make its peevish cry. 

To the tender God I turn : — 
"Pardon, Love most High! 
For I think those arms were even Thine, 
And that child was even I." 

Uncle Ben paid up immediately — the odd 
sixpence in coppers. He is indeed a true 
" sport." As we sat down to supper Hetty 
murmured: "This has been perfect joy — 
this day of June." Roger assented. Uncle 
Ben grunted. I smiled. 



The wounded soldier boy smiled, too. " Is 
Hetty very nice?" he asked. 
"Yes," I answered. 

"You might bring her to see me," he said. 
Then he smiled again. 



CHAPTER X 

THE VISION SPLENDID 

I SAT in Hyde Park waiting for the soldiers. 
1 There was to be a march past, I had been 
told, with the bag-pipes, tooting Blue Bonnets 
over the Border, the drums banging, and the 
fifes asking shrilly, "What does he know of 
England who only England knows?" We 
were to see the soldier boys swinging away 
to camp, for the eve of their departure for 
the front had come. So I sat in Hyde Park 
waiting for the — soldiers. 

The three ragged little girls mothering 
two babies were also waiting. Silent and 
solemn, they were seated on the grass in 
front of the Serpentine bathing-place. The 
policeman on duty by the diving-boards was 

also waiting. He watched, and he was eyed 

72 



THE VISION SPLENDID 73 

by a horde of ragamuffin boys. They, too, 
were waiting. It was a quarter before six, 
and not until the hour struck would the 
policeman move from the water's edge and 
allow the boys to rush to their evening dip. 
Each was prepared for the supreme moment ; 
each had cast all his rags away except breeches 
and braces, and each — there were half a 
hundred of them — was shouting and playing 
— waiting noisily. 

Ugh! The sight of the boys was cheerful 
enough. But why were they not Scouts? 
I thought of a Boy Scout who had called at 
my house to solicit a small sum for a concert. 
"And how are you going on?" I asked. 
"Fine," he answered, and drawing himself 
up proudly: "Five of us have been killed 
already." Life, Death, O Time! "Wis- 
dom contemplating mankind," said a great 
writer, "is filled with pity and disdain." But 
God understands. 

Those ragamuffin boys, who should have 
been Scouts, were beginning life; their state 



74 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

of rags and poverty was powerless to affect 
their joy in the moment; they lived in the 
present, the future threw no shadow; it had 
not begun. But when I turned in my chair 
and faced towards the park I saw on a bank, 
sitting and dozing in the sunshine, a score or 
so of vagrants, old, middle-aged, and young 
men, some making a meal off broken bits of 
food which they had brought with them 
wrapped in newspapers, others mending 
their tattered clothes, each engrossed with 
his poor self — apathetic, indifferent to the 
world except as a place from which suste- 
nance might be snatched furtively. These 
were the men who should be fighting — these 
useless lives. Surely a time will come in the 
history of the world, when man, if he must 
fight, will thrust the unfit into the firing line, 
not the fit and the valiant. 

Soothed by the warmth of the sun, they 
were waiting until it was time to prowl forth 
under cover of night to the dim streets, offer- 
ing chances. Boys beginning, men ending 



THE VISION SPLENDID 75 

life, mortal realities, hope and hopelessness, 
and I trying to make up my mind about this 
madness of war that had seized the world. 

As I sat in the sunshine waiting, I saw 
between me and the shining water a picture, 
not on canvas, but in the mind's eye, a picture 
of the funeral of an old woman of the very 
poor class, a caretaker in a church, who might 
have been the mother of one of those boys, 
or the wife of one of those men. And I saw 
in the mind's eye, as the modest procession 
passed through the mean streets, hats being 
raised and eyes following the poor cortege 
affectionately; and when a passer-by asked 
someone who had known the old woman 
what was the secret of her influence, he 
answered, and to make his meaning quite 
sure he wrote it down: 

"Her secret was an open one. She had 
never lost the vision splendid nor let Heaven 
slip from her heart." 

The vision splendid! Was not that what 
I was really waiting for, the vision splendid, 



76 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

ever present in life, and one day to be made 
plain to all? Between the lively boys and the 
lethargic men the old woman intervened, and 
from her coffin manifested it. 

The clock struck six. The boys doffed 
their breeches and rushed wildly into the 
water. As the policeman moved away he 
caught sight of the three little girls mothering 
the two babies who had waited so patiently. 

"Now you be off," he cried. Obediently 
they rose, knowing that it is life to be moved 
on just when the fun begins. They went 
away ruefully, staggering under the weight 
of the babies. As they climbed the railings 
one raised her head and saw the splendour 
of the sky with the sun half hidden by a 
racing cloud, and she said: " Oh, look, Polly !" 

Polly looked. For an instant the clamour 
of the world was hushed; I think in that 
moment they forgot all about the policeman 
and the splashing urchins. And I, waiting 
for the soldiers who never came, had found 
the vision splendid — in a funeral and a sky. 



CHAPTER XI 

ART AND IMMORTALITY 

DEFORE the war he was a musician 
^ devoted to fugues and etchings. Now 
he is a Flight Sub-Lieutenant (R.N.), ab- 
sorbed in aeroplanes and anti-aircraft guns. 
He is quite happy, although he lives in a hut 
on a muddy plain and, weather permitting, 
risks his life daily in the air. 

I sat in his comfortable study in London 
awaiting him, thinking of the vicissitudes 
of life which had converted the musician from 
a Fuguist into a Flying Man. Soon I laughed, 
recalling this passage from Jeremy Taylor 
— "All parts of the scheme are eternally 
chasing each other, like the parts of a fugue." 
His game is still to chase something, but the 

quarry has changed — that's all. 
77 



78 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

There was a pleasant rush of air as the 
door opened. In he came. " You," he said, 
and smiled, " Oh, it's good to be home again, 
even for a night." We talked, not of war; 
we talked about the Rembrandt etchings 
that hung upon the walls, of the Abraham and 
Isaac, the eternal lesson of sacrifice, which 
has always, we know not why, been the last 
glad refuge and triumph of humanity. 
" Rembrandt was initiate," said I. "He 
muddled his material life, but his spiritual 
vision was never obscured. It was as clear 
to him as the world's dumb fealty to sacrifice." 
"Yes," said the Musician, "Rembrandt 
knew, and because he had no doubts about 
his spiritual knowledge he helps us now 
enormously. That picture there is, to me, 
the spiritual expression of our cause. It 
abides with me in all danger." 

His eyes were raised above the mantelpiece. 
They were looking at a large photograph of 
Rembrandt's, Polish Rider — that unforget- 
table picture, a warrior riding forth through 



ART AND IMMORTALITY 79 

a romantic landscape, but the mission of this 
rider is born of the spirit, not of the flesh: he 
rides forth to fight for right, not for might. 
"That picture sustains me," said the Musi- 
cian. "I return here for another look at 
it. Its message cannot fade. This war has 
taught me that a picture can have the essence 
of immortality and can help us to see light 
beyond the blackness of a moment." 

"Yes," I said, "and music has that power 
too. Mendelssohn has it." 

The Maker of Fugues flared up. I had 
touched a sensitive nerve. "Really," he 
said, "you must not admire Mendelssohn. 
He is neither profound, nor pathetic, nor 
spiritual — he's merely melodious and cheerful. 
In art you do not permit yourself to like 
Correggio. Moreover, Mendelssohn was a 
German." 

"Being dead he lives forgiven. Listen! 
Here's my case about Mendelssohn, not 
theory but fact. It happened; and a day 
closed joyously because of this dead German 



80 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

who loved England, who was happy and who 
made melody out of his happiness. His joy 
is with us still; it cannot be taken from a 
broken-hearted world. Art is love, God is 
love, and, who knows, it may be through 
art to God that our hearts will be made whole 
again. But you want my story, a little 
story, telling how a little song brought 
healing. 

"O, but it was a doleful day with a gusty 
wind, a blurred sky, and a drizzle of rain. I 
tried to be cheerful because I was beginning 
a brief holiday, but an ambulance train 
entered the station five minutes before we 
started. I, trying not to look, saw it all — 
those bronzed boys helpless — in pain. The 
tenderness of the nurses and orderlies I saw 
too, and also the stained bandages and the 
broken lives. I tried to visualise Rethel's 
engraving of Death as a Friend, tried to 
repeat once more Henley's lines, 'Take us, 
break us, we are yours, England, my own,' 
but the words swam out of sight in a mist. 



ART AND IMMORTALITY 81 

I arrived at my destination to discover that 
my luggage had gone astray. 

"That destination was a coast town, lovely 
in sunshine, unlovely in the darkening gloom, 
with barricades and barbed wire on the 
front, and deep trenches in the yellow sands. 
Night fell, no lamps were lighted, and the 
nocturne recruiting meeting that was held 
outside the hotel was like calling to ghosts 
to quit themselves like men. During dinner 
we were startled by the screech of syrens 
from the sea; then a gun boomed. We 
peeped through the curtains; only blackness 
and foreboding. Afterwards in the lounge 
the little company were silent. The evening 
papers came. A woman looked eagerly 
down the casualty lists and began to cry. 

" 'So,' I murmured, 'this is England in 
war-time! Thank God night will soon come 
to hide in oblivion this atrocious day.' As 
I spoke a servant opened the pianoforte, and 
another led in two blind men. One had a 
violin. 



82 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

"They played Mendelssohn's Spring Song. 
And at once, swift as light, gloom went, joy 
came, hope and gladness rippled into our 
hearts, because two blind makers of music 
were playing Mendelssohn's Spring Song, 
thus once more affirming the eternal mission 
of art." 

"But Mendelssohn isn't art," said the 
Musician. "Now Mozart " 

"Well, call him immortal," said I, "like 
Rembrandt; for to cheer, from the grave, 
one lonely, living soul is Immortality, which 
is greater than art. Thus we may begin to 
understand the Communion of Saints by 
Rembrandt and Mendelssohn." 

The Musician, who is now a Flight Sub- 
Lieutenant (R.N.), smiled, and as he smiled 
he whistled the Spring Song, and as he 
whistled he looked reverently at the Polish 
Rider. "Yes," he said, "as one star differs 
from another in glory, so, I suppose, there 
are degrees of Immortality." 



CHAPTER XII 

THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 

T HAD been in the neighbourhood of the 
* camp where her grandson, aged nineteen, 
was stationed. He sailed for France the 
next day. Later, on my return to London, 
I hastened to her house. 

She is old in years — very old — but her 
heart is young. It is always spring-time in 
her heart. There she sits in her arm-chair 
by the fire, dwelling on the wants and ways 
of others, carrying on, carrying out the pre- 
cepts of a living philosopher who has said 
that "whatever comes after death, the com- 
mand of life is the same — to expand out of 
oneself into the larger life of the world." 
That, I know, is her Easter text, her first 
prayer on the Bright Day. 
83 



84 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

She is of soldier stock, a mother and grand- 
mother of warriors, and the last of them is 
her grandson, aged nineteen. Quickly she 
showed me a letter from him, written in 
pencil when he was crossing the Channel, 
reading aloud this passage: "I shall be at the 
front by Easter, granny — our Easter." She 
sighed, but refused to be sad. 

To her quiet room have come, all this 
year, many soldiers, some on brief leave from 
the front, others recovering from wounds. 
They do not talk much. Some kiss her 
hand, and say a few words. Her fine old 
face is firm, there is no moisture in her eyes, 
for she is of the soldier breed. Once only 
have I seen the tears start to her estimating 
eyes, and that was — I will tell you about it 
later. 

These men, these soldiers from the front, 
war-worn, grave, the look of command in 
their eyes, and that other look, uplifting all 
who have seen unutterable things, who know 
the cost of victory, and who return to face 



THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 85 

death — these men give to her drawing-room 
the atmosphere of the heroic age. Indi- 
viduals come and go, but the type is always 
present, and, seeing them, I plead for for- 
giveness for the wickedness of war in grati- 
tude for the spiritual evolution that, out 
of complexities of horror, can produce this 
selfless type of heroism. 



On this day she was alone, her knitting in 
her hands, her grandson's letter marking a 
page in a thick green book resting upon her 
lap. "Browning's Christmas Eve and Easter 
Day," she said, "I always read it this week 
each year. Once I read it to him — poor boy, 
he was so bored. It was at Winchelsea, and 
the meadows were full of little frisking lambs, 
and the larks were singing. We have spent 
so many Easters together, and always away 
from London. Once, early on Easter Sun- 
day, he brought me a daffodil, and he said, 
as he gave it to me: 'He is risen,' and I 



86 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

answered, in the old way. ' He is risen, indeed,' 
and he whispered: 'Granny is that why you 
and I are always so happy at Easter?' He 
was such a serious little fellow, and now he's 
grown up, he's nineteen, and he's given all, 
his bright youth, his love of life, to his King 
and Country. His work has begun. 'O, 
lover of my life, soldier-saint, no work 
begun shall ever pause for death!'" Then 
the tears fell. 

It was the only time I have seen her cry. 
"That's from Browning, too," she said, 
brushing the tears away. "He understood. 
O, but I'm a silly old woman. I won't be 
sad at Easter. I never have been. Why, 
the flowers are all coming out, and the buds 
peeping, and the blossom glistening in the 
sun, and my boy in his brave new uniform 
has, I know, the light of spring and victory 
in his eyes. All the world is beginning life 
anew after that illusion we call death, or 
winter." She looked up towards the light 
and suddenly she seemed initiate as she 



THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 87 

uttered the great words that sanctify the 
Bright Day. " Surrexit, He is risen. Vere 
surrexit, He is risen indeed." 

"If only I could see it all again," she said 
presently. ' ' This re-birth of the world which 

I feel in my heart, see again one unforgettable 
sight like those lambs my boy and I watched 
frisking in the sun at Winchelsea. But I 
must stay at home. My friends are my 
eyes. Now, you have been in the country, 
where my boy was stationed, you have felt 
the spring, tell me what you have seen of 
the re-birth of the world, tell me what has 
left the most vivid impression upon you; 
tell me the unforgettable sight that I may 
cherish it this Easter." 

" One day was a day of sunshine," I began, 

II clear and pure, and the blossom, rather 
scanty, was pink against the blue sky, and 
on the bare trees there were little clumps of 
swelling green buds. The beds were ablaze 
with crocuses, and beyond the hedge were 
pale primroses, and the golden celandine, 



88 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

and if the snowdrops had gone, the bluebells 
were now beginning to promise their beauty. 
Oh, the violets were already peeping out! 
We were standing in the garden watching a 
heron flying high over the pond by the wood, 
when we heard the sound of guns ." 

"No, no, not that," she said, "not killing, 
not that, tell me of birds, of the promise of 
spring, of a world new-risen with revived 
hopes — show me the unforgettable sight ." 

' 'We heard the sound of firing, and soon 
we saw the soldiers coming over the hill, 
swinging down the white road. We went 
to meet them, we thought your boy might 
be among them — and he was!" 

"Ah!" 

"We watched them approach. They had 
been singing Tipperary, but as they drew near, 
the chorus ceased, there was a pause, nothing 
but the shuffling of feet, then someone struck 
up 'John Brown's body lies a-mouldering in 
the grave, But his soul goes marching on.' 
They all joined in. We raised our hats and 



THE UNFORGETTABLE SIGHT 89 

— and, oh it was wonderful! I realised it 
all, felt the whole meaning, this consecrated 
company, these soldiers of Christ, righting 
the good fight for an Ideal, and your boy 
was among them. His face was transfigured. 
That was the unforgettable sight." 

"Yes, yes," she murmured, "I am content, 
so content. Nothing is lost. God keep 
them, and bring them home again. All is 
well. The season of re-birth is with us. We 
may sometimes think that all grows drear in 

spite of the sunshine . " She checked 

herself, turned to the poem, and read aloud 
in a firm voice: 

But Easter-Day breaks. But 
Christ rises. Mercy every way 
Is infinite — and who can say? 

"Browning greeted the Unseen with a 
cheer. So will I, so will we. My boy is 
mine for evermore. The risen cannot fall. 
The deathless cannot die. Surrexit." 

11 Vere surrexit" 



CHAPTER XIII 

THE WHELPS 

\A /E were seated round the fire discuss- 
" * ing the inevitable subject. But we 
had made a compact. Our war talk should 
be only of things that are encouraging and 
helpful. So much at least we — safe, snug, 
and warm — could do. From our fireside 
would pass out into the world invisible rays 
of fortitude ; of pride and trust in wise rulers ; 
in devoted civilians; in our glorious soldiers 
and sailors — and in the whelps. At first we 
called them our chicks, and I imagined a 
patriotic cartoon showing the old bird sud- 
denly finding herself in trouble, beset by 
enemies — and, you know what happened, 
the chicks flying home across the seas from 

all parts of the world to rally round her. 
90 



THE WHELPS 91 

The rumour that the old Mother was in 
trouble was enough for them — the chicks re- 
nounced at once their pursuits and pastimes, 
and flocked home — such big, gallant chicks. 

But Miggles (she has always been called 
Miggles after a famous and dear character 
in fiction), who was trying not to cry tears 
of pride which were half joy and half sorrow, 
complained that she didn't like the idea of 
the old bird and her chicks. " They're lion 
whelps," she said, "not chicks. They heard 
the old lion roar, and they came. It was 
the call of the blood." 

So we named them the whelps, and we 
hymned them as we sat patiently waiting for 
our whelps, three brothers, one of whom had 
married a daughter of our host. They were 
coming in their khaki to say an revoir. Alas, 
there is no word in English which whispers — 
"We'll come back soon, and all will be well." 
So we waited and talked of the great family 
of whelps from Australia, New Zealand, 
Canada, Newfoundland, and South Africa; 



92 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

from all lands where the hardy English have 
penetrated — those whelps, some rich, some 
poor, some dark, some fair, all of the blood, 
clear-eyed, defiant, who bring the air of the 
open and the stride of free men into muggy 
London town. Sometimes when I meet 
them in Victoria Street, I think for the 
moment that I am on the prairie. 

We talked proudly of the whelps; but 
after a while our hostess, who is a Londoner 
born, and who had been rather silent, said: 
"But don't forget our London boys — the 
boys of Pimlico, and Hoxton, and Streatham, 
and Highgate, and everywhere, who rushed 
to help when the old lion first began to lash 
his tail. He found that he was a little stiff 
in the joints when he shook himself; but he 
soon showed that he was as game and as 
strong as ever. Don't forget our London 
boys who helped him to his feet." 

No, we did not forget them. Yet we were 
silent, for not one of us but ached for the loss 
of a London boy, and at the thought of all 



THE WHELPS 93 

that was left — just a little cross in Flanders, 
Gallipoli, or Mesopotamia, or some spot on 
the great waters, never to be located, but 
never to be forgotten. We were silent. 

Presently I told them the tale of the two 
London boys and the Gallipoli blizzard, a 
sad tale, but the simple splendour of it out- 
soars the sadness. It was the fifth day of 
the great blizzard and frost at Suvla. Men 
came in, reported the medical officer, frozen 
to the knees, some with gangrene. Many 
were mere boys, but they had refused to 
leave the trenches until reinforcements ar- 
rived. One morning, a Newfoundlander, in 
a trench near by, drew the attention of the 
medical officer to two figures in a ditch out 
by the Salt Lake. The officer called a 
stretcher party, and they found two lads of 
the City of London Regiment sitting in the 
ditch frozen and dead. One of the lads had 
his arms around the other, and he was hold- 
ing pieces of biscuit to his companion 's mouth. 

We were silent. We could not speak, and 



94 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

while we sat thus, looking down, the three 
whelps entered, grand in their new uniforms, 
and one said — "Holloa, is this a funeral?" 
They judged by our faces; they could not 
see the pride and glory in our hearts because 
we belonged to the Anglo-Saxon race. We 
admired their uniforms, debated kit topics, 
and told cheerful stories, for nobody wanted 
to break down, and we wished to send the 
whelps off with happy memories. 

When they had gone I began thinking of 
the Britons, who, for some centuries, have 
scattered over the globe. They are the sires, 
grandsires, ancestors of our whelps. Then 
I remembered the forty-niners in California, 
and the days of my youth, when Bret Harte's 
stories, revealing a free, fresh life, brimming 
with humour, pathos, and the sense of sacri- 
fice, seemed to me, as a boy, sublime. Ob- 
sessed by the dream I rose and drew from the 
bookshelf the volume of Bret Harte's stories. 

Aloud I read passages from the four master- 
pieces — Tennessee's Partner, The Luck of 



THE WHELPS 95 

Roaring Camp, The Outcasts of Poker Flat, 
and Miggles, wherein are enshrined types of 
the fearless, philosophical, humorous, straight 
British ancestors of our dear whelps. Glad 
was I to recover from the past dear Mliss, 
and best of all, the loyal, loving, and unparal- 
leled Miggles. 

While our Miggles tried to dissemble, I 
thought of another wanderer, a Scot, this 
time, R.L.S., who, far, far away from home 
wrote of his wife: 

Trusty, dusky, vivid, true, 

With eyes of gold and bramble dew, 

Steel-true and blade-straight, 

The great artificer 

Made my mate. 

I said these lines over to myself as we made 
our way home through the darkened streets, 
and I dreamed that night of all they meant, 
and of Tennessee's Partner, and of Miggles, 
and of whelps so big that they could not 
stand upright in a motor-bus, and who 
always called England — home. 



96 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

Next day we met two more whelps. The 
encounter stirred us to joy. The first sat 
opposite to me at a luncheon party in West- 
minster. He was a young Lieutenant, fair, 
with an eye like the flash of a sword, who 
quoted Michael Drayton, and was familiar 
with Froissart, and who regarded London 
as the most entrancing place in the world. 
"Where do you come from?" I asked him 
afterwards, shuffling my chair alongside his. 
He told me that he is a South African, Eng- 
lish father, Dutch mother, and that he had 
worked his passage to Tilbury docks as 
assistant purser. And why had he come? 
"O, you know the old country wanted — 
you understand." Yes, I understood. The 
mother-father lion was bothered, and the 
whelp hastened to her aid. 

I told this to Miggles as we roamed about 
Westminster afterwards. "I'd love to adopt 
a whelp," she said, tearfully. "All right," 
said I, "but choose one who is not more than 
six foot six inches high." 



THE WHELPS 97 

"Here's a batch to select from," I re- 
marked, as towards us from the direction of 
the Embankment Garden came four soldiers, 
privates, magnificent, laden, mud-stained, 
fresh from the trenches. As they approached, 
one of them, who was walking lame, lagged 
behind. His companions crossed the road 
and hastened towards the Square. The lame 
man hobbled towards us, and as he passed 

I noticed on his epaulette the word " Canada." 
Private Something of Canada had gone a 
dozen yards away when Miggles cried: 

II Can't we do something for him? Do let 
me try!" She ran after him. I followed 
leisurely to discover her pressing upon him 
offers of assistance. "There's a delightful 
Soldiers' Club at Victoria," she was saying, 
"where you can get a really good meal for 
a few pence." "Thank you so much," he 
said. * ' I appreciate your kindness, madam. ' ' 
His manner was courteous, his accent that 
of an educated man, but there was a tiny 
twinkle of amusement in his eyes, and I 



98 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

noticed that he wore on his little finger a fine 
signet ring. 

But Miggles would not be denied. She 
plied him with offers of help and questions. 
Yes, he had come from the trenches that 
morning: a three-months-old wound in his 
leg was troubling him a little, but it was of 
no consequence; he had been in London 
before, knew it rather well. 

His eyes roamed up, up, the House of the 
Mother of Parliaments. " That's wonder- 
ful," he said. 

"It stands for Freedom — it's worth fight- 
ing for," cried Miggles. 

"Yes," said the soldier, quietly, "it's 
worth fighting for." 

"And are you sure," continued Miggles, 
"that we can't do anything for you? Couldn't 
we find you a nice little hotel, and drive 
you there?" looking furtively at his lame 
leg. 

"Thanks so much," said the Canadian 
Private; "my friends have just gone on to 



THE WHELPS 99 

find a cab, and — and we've already engaged 
rooms at the Ritz." 

We resumed our walk, and I said gently 
to Miggles: "When you propose to adopt a 
whelp you'd better make sure that he's not 
a millionaire." 



CHAPTER XIV 

ENDURING TO THE END 

I ASSOCIATE Uncle John with the walk, 
and the walk with Uncle John. He is 
the genius of that green place in mid-London 
where thrushes sing, herons doze, rabbits 
nibble, and a waterfall sprinkles the shrubs. 
I salute the veteran. Uncle John, civilian, 
is a gallant son of England. Broken in 
health, his son gone, his wife a memory, this 
ageing man is enduring to the end. Uncon- 
quered by time and disaster, he is worthy 
sire of his soldier-boy who died with a laugh 
and a shout, without a pang, shot in the 
throat as he leapt into the enemy's trench. 
The father remains — "sticking it." Once a 
rationalist, now a mystic, the change so 
slow, the awakening so delicate, he endures, 

IOO 



ENDURING TO THE END 101 

I believe, I am sure, as seeing Him who is 
invisible. Valiant to the end, we are helped 
by the tireless patience and unfaltering faith 
of this ill, ageing man, known to many sol- 
diers as Uncle John. 

That walk — such a little walk! You may 
approach it spaciously from Marble Arch; 
you may reach it quickly through that nagged 
lane in Knightsbridge called Park Place. 
Either way leads to the East bridge over the 
Serpentine, the beginning and the end of 
that sanctified walk. Wonderful sights may 
be seen! There are days when, as you lean 
on the parapet, and look westward over the 
wide, curving water (moist twilights in the 
clearing after rain for choice), water and sky 
seem to lead to Infinity. The dim trees in 
the distance, bordering the grey water, help 
the illusion, and reveal to us the Open Gate, 
which Claude and Turner brought into art, 
and which must always stir in man immortal 
longings. 

This is the sight that Uncle John sees at 



102 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

the hour of sundown — his hour of relaxation. 
For his days are rigorously devoted to "doing 
his bit." He makes bandages ; he sandpapers 
splints; he cuts ham sandwiches three nights 
a week at a soldiers' club; he composes and 
prints at his own cost leaflets which he calls 
Wargains; and, best of all, he takes wounded 
soldiers on this little walk at sundown — 
where thrushes sing. 

He leads them, some hobbling, some stump- 
ing on one leg and a crutch, through Park 
Place, across the Row, and so to the East 
Bridge. There they pause; they lean over 
the parapet; their eyes, still harbouring the 
dread sights of war, look beyond the water, 
absorbing that sweet, fresh solitude of peace, 
and Uncle John talks of . 

No, I must not repeat his talk. He is 
very wise, and although in his great heart 
there is a burning desire to tell these boys of 
the righteous and noble cause for which they 
are fighting; that he who endures to the end 
shall save himself, his friends, and his land, 



ENDURING TO THE END 103 

Uncle John does not sermonize them. He 
is wise. He talks history; he tells the boys 
the curious tale of the Serpentine Lake, the 
lost Westbourne brook which feeds the lake, 
its hidden springs and outflowings to the 
other waters of the Royal Parks; he speaks 
of the birds, how he has seen a blue tit here, 
and a flock of chaffinches yonder; he tells of 
the dead, the great and the good, makers of 
England, who have crossed this bridge; he 
reminds these soldier-boys that they stand 
there in the heart of our England; he indi- 
cates Whitehall, Kensington, Westminster, 
hallowed by memories, our splendid heritage, 
placed in our charge — "and that's the old 
land you're fighting for, boys, fighting so 
that your children may come into it free and 
unfettered, clean and confident, as we did. 
Keep the old flag flying!" And into the 
clear eyes of his hearers comes a look that is 
good to see. They are of the old British 
stock, men who drew the bow, and sailed the 
seas, and feared nothing. I turn away, for 



104 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

my eyes are dimmed with pride and gladness 
that I am British born. 

Then the walk begins. They cross the 
bridge to the north. Uncle John stops be- 
fore the inscription which tells how Edward 
the Confessor gave the manor of Hyde to the 
Abbey of Westminster, with a supply of pure 
water from a conduit which started at this 
spot. The group descends the path to the 
right, passing the pond where the grave 
herons stand, Uncle John talking all the while 
of England's past, her splendour, and her 
freedom; her flowers, birds, and trees that 
you may see in this odd, delightful little walk 
in the heart of London. Then they ascend 
to the right, and the brimming Serpentine 
is in view again, and the weeping ashes and 
the young shoots on the Daphne tree; so they 
come once more to the bridge and the para- 
pet which faces the Open Gate. There they 
linger, somewhat tired, although it is such a 
little walk; but wounded soldiers are not 
athletes. Before they separate, Uncle John 



ENDURING TO THE END 105 

murmurs, confidentially, a few sentences of 
simple, helpful talk, explaining the mystical 
meaning of such words as duty, endurance, 
consecration, faith, God ; and he likes to give 
each of them a copy of one of his leaflets 
called War gains. If the day be fine he will 
read them something from a dumpy khaki- 
covered note-book, which he calls My Antho- 
logy. One day when he read a poem, a soldier 
by my side, with one arm gone and a right 
leg in a sling, nodded his head, and said — 
"That's a bit o' alright. So's 'e." "True," 
I said, "Uncle John's all right. He's en- 
during to the end, against odds, and that 
isn't easy. Why do you call him Uncle 
John?" 

The soldier rearranged the sling about his 
crippled leg, remarking to it, "Now, none 
o' your back talk," and said : "Why do we call 
'im Uncle John? Well, it's like this. 'E 
told us once that John the Apostle, when he 
was a very old man — a deal older than Bobs 
was when he died — used to stand about in 



106 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

market-places, always saying of the same 
thing, which was 'Little children, love one 
another.' We chaps tried to figure it out 
how you love and kill at the same time. We 
couldn't agree, so we asked 'im to tell us the 
story again, and my mate said that this 
Saint John must 'ave been like the old chap, 
so we called 'im John — that is, Uncle John, 
because John seemed too familiar like." 

Came a day, a sunset clearing after rain, 
when something happened, which rounded 
off Uncle John's life into an episode final 
and unforgettable. He had been ill. It was 
the incurable, internal complaint that gave 
him constant discomfort and frequent pain; 
but the attacks only increased his activities. 
When I, watching the spasms of his face and 
limbs, offered sympathetic suggestions about 
taking it easier and nursing his perverse body, 
he answered, "No, when I sink I'll go down 
in full sail," and his frail form straightened 
itself, and in his eyes there was ecstasy. We 
were waiting by the parapet. We had gone 



ENDURING TO THE END 107 

on together during one of the little walks, 
ahead of the group of wounded soldiers who 
had lingered trying to induce the solemnest 
of the herons to partake of a meal of bread 
and cheese. When they had overtaken us, 
Uncle John, withdrawing his khaki anthology 
from his pocket, said: "Boys, it's a rare 
evening — look at the sky! It's an evening 
to remember, and I want to read you some- 
thing that you'll remember when you're — 
out there. It will help you." He had 
reached as far as " Though I walk through the 
valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no 
evil; for Thou art with me," when, suddenly, 
there was a commotion on the bridge, and 
there advanced towards us that sight of sights 
which no home-staying Englishman can look 
upon without emotion and exultation — a sol- 
dier fresh from the trenches — laden, stained, 
caked in mud, smiling. 

He saluted and said: "Thought I should 
see you here, sir. Some of your boys asked 
me to find you and give you a message. 



108 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

They want you to know that they're ' sticking 
it, ' same as you are, and they say that they're 
better able to stick it for what you've told 
'em, and because you believe in 'em. Any 
message, sir?" The soldier's hand went 
again to the salute. He waited as for orders. 

We waited, too. I thanked God that I 
had been allowed to live for that moment. 
It was a long moment, because the old civil- 
ian's eyes had again sought the Open Gate. 
They rested there — seeing something. Then 
he turned to the mud-spattered soldier, and 
because he was pure in heart, and without 
guile, Uncle John said just two words, just 
the right words — those two words that in 
these days are as significant and uplifting 
as any two words in the language. 

"Any message, sir?" repeated the mud- 
spattered soldier. 

"Carry on," said Uncle John. 



CHAPTER XV 

TO ONE WHO WAS READY 

TN the nave of Westminster Abbey, sunk 
A in the floor, is a worn marble slab — a me- 
morial to one of the Makers of England. On 
the slab is a plain cross, and beneath it are 
the words, "Be Ready." Seeing that injunc- 
tion and the cross, I thought of you, Soldier- 
Healer, and planned a letter which would 
form the epilogue to this little book; and I 
determined that the title should be "To One 
who was Ready.' ' 



I had chanced into the Abbey, with a 

French Canadian from the front, while the 

service of Intercession, which has been held 

there daily since the war began, was in pro- 
109 



no THE SOLDIER-BOY 

gress. All around were the memorials of 
our "decent and dauntless race," silent wit- 
nesses, of whom we must be worthy. And 
I was conscious, Soldier-Healer, of a mystical 
communion with you, and with your men, 
so far away on a hillside in Salonica. In- 
visible, yet you were all visible to me. 

When the service ended I sat, revolving 
many things too elusive for words, for with all 
of us feeling has become too deep and un- 
charted for mere words or speech to express 
it. Dumbly seeking relief, I went over in 
memory the unrealised happiness of the days 
before the war; then I pictured that fateful 
August of 1 9 14, and all since. O, the mental 
and emotional experiences our dear English 
folk have passed through — pride, purifica- 
tion, fervour, sorrow, joy, apprehension, 
determination, wonder, loss, anxiety, gain, 
hope — and now all these pangs have solidi- 
fied into a grim, glad resolution, common 
to all, in spite of the divergences of utter- 
ance of proud, free men — to endure to the 



TO ONE WHO WAS READY in 

end. And to be ready for endurance as for 
triumph. 

You were always ready! I see you in the 
years before the war, an ardent Territorial, 
snatching leisure from your professional 
duties, to drill and to train your men in mili- 
tary usages ; but also in the arts of succouring 
and healing the wounded, the purpose and 
privilege of your corps. I recall the eve of 
the outbreak of war, when I sought your 
company, feeling the need of speech with one 
who would be facing the coming catastrophe 
with steady brain and strong heart. I found 
you "getting your kit together," arranging 
for the swift end of your civil life, and of 
your private professional work. All that 
was over until the war was over. You, and 
your wife, treated the cataclysm as a long 
foreseen and inevitable break in the pleasant 
run of life. You had discussed the coming 
of the break, made all your plans. So the 
day, the awful day, found you prepared — 
ready to act immediately, you as a soldier 



ii2 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

healer at the front, she as a civilian healer 
at the base. You uttered no heroics, you 
sought no perferment, you set about your 
duty quietly. I thought of what Blake had 
once said: "I should be sorry if I had any 
earthly fame, for whatever natural glory a 
man has is so much detracted from his spir- 
itual glory. I wish to do nothing for profit ; 
I want nothing; I am quite happy.' ' 



You disappeared. I picked you up from 
our army in the making again and again in 
the succeeding months — at barracks in Lon- 
don, at camps in Surrey, and Sussex, calm, 
confident, training your boys, and I am sure 
no unit went out to France more prepared, 
more willing for any sacrifice, so that England 
might be saved, and freedom established 
four-square against all assaults of the envious. 

Then your letters began to arrive from 
somewhere in France — such letters, nothing 
about yourself, but always something about 



TO ONE WHO WAS READY 113 

your boys, your "blessed boys," their endur- 
ance, their gaiety, their sacrifice. O yes, 
we wrote much to each other about that 
wonderful dream come true called Sacrifice 
that has passed, angel-like, with finger on 
lip, over the land, uniting all, whatever their 
lives or beliefs, into the knowledge — inar- 
ticulate yet universal — that to give is to gain. 
To the Greeks it may have been foolishness, 
to the Jews a stumbling-block — to our land 
it has become everything. And I, elderly 
and ill, was wretched that I could not be 
with the boys fighting, or with you healing, 
in the midst of that hell. Someone from 
Verdun had written: "Only he, who has 
heaven in his heart, can withstand this hell." 
O those letters that come to us from the 
front. The faith of some of them is as water 
in a desert. O the faith of our boys in spite 
of that hell, and their clairvoyance about 
eternal things! It was M. Bordeaux — was 
it not? — who said, "Those who pray much 
are not always the worst informed." 



114 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

One day there came for me a gleam of 
happiness, and an effort to accept my lot. 
You told me that an article of mine had 
helped you, helped some of your boys. And 
you asked for other messages. So I had the 
confidence to go on, and to gather them into 
a little book. Here it is, Soldier-Healer. 
My heart sends it. You will open it some- 
where on that hillside in Salonica, whither 
you went without warning all "in the day's 
work," ready for anything, so long as your 
country asked. 

England has always refused to be dis- 
pirited — so have you. And as just now I 
quoted what Blake, that great Englishman, 
so un-English, yet in essentials so greatly 
English, said about the individual, here I 
recall what a great American said of Eng- 
land: "I see her, not dispirited, not weak, but 
well remembering that she has seen dark 
days before; indeed, with a kind of instinct 
that she sees a little better in a cloudy day, 
and that in a storm of battle and calamity 



TO ONE WHO WAS READY 115 

she has a secret vigour and a pulse like a 
cannon.' ' It is the knowledge of a just and 
righteous cause that gives England and gives 
you and your boys secret vigour and a pulse 
like a cannon; it is faith, which is insight, 
that enabled you, in days of happy peace, to 
be alert and ready for the pounce of the 
unrighteous. 

I arise and return to the nave, to that old 
grey slab embedded in the floor. I see again 
the cross, and the injunction. "Be Ready," 
and I see in a vision that cross and those 
words as your crest and motto. So from this 
Temple of Silence and Reconciliation in 
ancient Westminster, to some new-born 
shanty church on a hillside in Salonica, there 
passes from me to you, old friend, the invisi- 
ble banner that I have chosen for you, and 
for your boys — the cry, "Be Ready," and 
above it the eternal symbol of the Cross. 

Consoled I pass from the Abbey into the 
brisk life of Westminster, and as I reach the 



n6 THE SOLDIER-BOY 

street there swings by a troop of Bird Men 
known officially as The Flying Corps. None 
can look at them without elation — these 
buoyant youths so gay and gallant. Smiling 
and singing, they pass, leaving with us, who 
are watching, an augury of cheer and confi- 
dence. Seeing them, old friend, I send you 
another message, the cry of assurance sailor- 
men use, the cry the poet heard in the night, 
the cry that rings in my heart to-day, and 
for all days, the cry — All's Well. 



THE END 



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